Honey Rolls

I cannot tell you how excited I am that these actually turned out and taste fantastic! One of my personal goals is to make yummy tasting bread that is fluffy and yeasty...these were all of those! These have a hint of sweetness due to the honey you add in the dough and the honey and butter mixture you brush on the top before you bake them, although despite the sweetness, I think this bread would be great as a loaf for your favorite sandwich!

Honey Rolls
Yields 12 rolls

2 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
1/4 cup honey, plus 1 Tbsp for brushing
1 tsp salt
1 egg
3 cups all purpose flour
1 Tbsp butter, melted

In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Add the honey, salt and egg to the yeast mixture and stir until blended. Add 3 cups flour and mix until the dough comes together, it will be sticky. On a lightly floured surface knead the dough until soft and elastic, about 8 minutes, adding more flour to keep the dough from sticking if necessary, being careful not to add too much flour. The dough will become more workable the longer you knead it. If you have a stand mixture, attache the dough hook and knead the dough for 5-7 minutes, or until it becomes elastic.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in size, about 2 hours.

Punch the dough down and divide into 12 equal portions. Shape into round balls and place in a lightly greased pan. Cover and let rise for another 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine the melted butter and the 1 Tbsp honey. Brush over the rolls and bake 10-13 minutes, or until lightly browned.

French Bread

I have been wanting to make Julia Child's Soupe A L'oignon, or french onion soup, for some time now, but really wanted to try my hand at making french bread loaves when making it. I bought this magazine, Taste of the South, over the weekend and found a recipe for the french loaves. This was my first time buying this magazine, and I am glad that I did. I may have to subscribe, just to help feed my addiction!

The bread was not that hard to make. I did learn that I need to split my dough more evenly..I ended up with a small loaf and a larger loaf,and not to use so much flour when forming into the loaf. But, other than that...it was a cinch to put together and was delicious! I ate 3 warm slices with a little butter before I even got to the soup. This was also a great time to teach Abby how to knead. I think she enjoyed it as much as I do.

Oh, and about the soup? Fantastic! Jamey gave me Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a Christmas gift. This is the first and only thing so far that I have made from it. It really made me want to dive into the book and make almost all of it. I have to say though, I draw the line at brains...yes, it tells you how to cook and clean them. Oh, and don't get me started on the aspic either..just can't bring myself to it. But, for the most part, it is stuff that I would make.

French Bread

From: Taste of the South

2 cups warm water

1 Tbsp sugar

1 (.25 oz) package active-rise yeast

3 Tbsp vegetable oil, divided

1 Tbsp salt

5 1/2-6 cups bread flour, divided

1/4 cup cornmeal

In a medium bowl, combine warm water, sugar and yeast. Let stand until foamy, approximately 10 minutes.

In the bowl of a large stand mixer, combine yeast mixture, 1 Tbsp oil, salt and 3 cups flour. Using the dough hook attachment, beat for 2-3 minutes, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Stir in enough of remaining flour to make s stiff dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth, approximately 1o minutes.

Grease a large bowl with remaining 2 Tbsp oil. Place dough in bowl, turning dough to coat all sides. Cover, and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in size. About 1 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down, and divide in half. Shape dough into 2 (17x3 inch) loaves.

Spray 2 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with cornmeal. Place each loaf on a prepared baking sheet. Make 4 cuts diagonally across the top of each loaf. Cover, and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Bake until crispy and golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Croissants

One day last week, while on Facebook, Laurie mentioned that she might be making croissants this past weekend and wondered if anyone would join her. Now, I have always wanted to make them, but had only heard how hard they were to make. So, I said that I would join her. We decided on the recipe from Michel Roux and I am glad that I finally made them. Other than the time constraint to make them, they were fairly easy. I did stuff a few of them with chocolate chips and those were yummy, but I also liked the plain ones with a drizzle of honey! I will make these again and probably fill with some different things..like strawberry jam and cream cheese! Yum!

Croissant Dough
From: Michel Roux

2tsp of active yeast, I used 1 packet of yeast
350 ml milk,or 1 1/2 cups--next time I will warm just a little
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 sticks butter, cold but not too hard

Egg wash, 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 Tbsp milk

Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Combine 2 1/2 cups of flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl; then pour in the milk mixture, allow the mixture to rest for 30 minutes. Add the remaining flour and stir until it begins to pull away from the sides. Cover the bowl and leave it to rise in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size. **If you have a stand mixer, you can mix it with the dough hook*
Punch down dough by flipping it over with your hand, but do not overwork it. (It is really wet and sticky) Cover the bowl again and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. (I left mine overnight and it wasn't sticky at all the next morning)
Shape the butter into a flat 5x7 rectangle. **I put the butter in between to pieces of cling wrap and beat it and rolled it with my rolling pin! ha!**Punch down dough by flipping again and place on a lightly floured surface. Pat the dough into a rectangle and roll it out into a larger rectangle. Place the butter in the center of the dough and fold the corner flaps over to completely enclose the butter.Lightly flour the work surface, roll the dough out to a 24x12 inch rectangle. Fold in thirds, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.
Give the chilled dough a quarter turn, roll out the rectangle, fold into thirds again, wrap and refrigerate again for 30 minutes.Roll the dough in the opposite direction as before, fold into thirds again, wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes but no more than 60.**This keeps the butter cold and gives croissant the flaky layers**
Lightly flour your work surface and roll the dough out to your rectangle, I rolled mine until it was about 1/4 inch thick. Cut this rectangle into thirds, long ways, so that you have 3 long strips. Cut the strips into squares, then the squares in half diagonally, this gives you the triangles. Make sure your surface is floured, or they will stick. :) Make a 1 cm cut in the middle of the bottom of the triangle. Pull the 2 base points to lightly separate and roll to form the crescent. I found that this did help it shape better, but you don't have to do this part. If you are going to fill them with anything, do it before you roll it.Put the croissants on a baking tray and lightly brush with the egg wash. Put the croissants in a warm place to rise for 2 hours, or until almost doubled.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, brush croissants with egg wash again, and bake for 15-20 minutes. Mine baked in about 13 minutes because I didn't want them to get too brown.

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

I probably think that these are the best cinnamon rolls that I have ever had! I made these with my friend, that I do the dinner club thing with, and we froze them. We made up the dough, let it rise, rolled it out and put the butter, sugar and cinnamon, rolled them back up, gave them a quick slice. We then put them in our pan and stuck them in the freezer. I had no idea if they would turn out or not. I pulled them out of the freezer about an hour before I was going to bake them. They thawed out in this hour and had just started to rise some more when I put them in the oven for their 15 minute bake. They puffed up perfectly! I had 20 of them in my pan and every one of them were eaten! I will now have them in my freezer at all times!!

One of the things that I really liked about this recipe was that 1.)it was simple and 2) this recipe makes a ton of them! The only thing I changed on this recipe was the maple glaze. I just went with the standard vanilla glaze, I am thinking a cream cheese glaze next time will be in order!

With The Pioneer Woman's book just coming out, this was the perfect time to try these out. The only thing that I have seen on her book is that it is wonderful! I'm thinking that I am going to have to bring one home to be part of the family! :)

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

1 quart of whole milk
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
8+1 cups of all-purpose flour
1 heaping tsp baking powder
1 "scant" tsp baking soda
1 heaping Tbsp of salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups melted butter
1 cup of sugar
generous sprinkling of cinnamon

Mix the milk, vegetable oil, and sugar in a pan. "Scald" the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point.) Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but not hot, sprinkle in both packages of Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 8 cups of all purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.

Add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it-overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to splurge out of the pan, just punch it down.)

Sprinkle surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Drizzle melted butter over the dough. Now sprinkle sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam to the roll to seal it. Spread 1 Tbsp of melted butter in seven round, foil cake or pie pans. Then begin cutting rolls approximately 3/4 to 1 inch thick and laying them int he buttered pans. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. Let the rolls rise for 20-30 minutes, then bake at 400 degrees until light golden brown, about 15-18 minutes.

Maple Frosting

1 bag of powdered sugar
2 tsp maple flavoring
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup brewed coffee
1/8 tsp salt

Mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls. Go crazy and don't skimp on the frosting! :)